


Hell Would Be Kinder Than This

by AmeliaFriend



Category: Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Dinner Party (Web Series)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-23
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-09-11 11:17:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8977474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmeliaFriend/pseuds/AmeliaFriend
Summary: Poe Party Secret Santa gift for @elia-smellia on tumblr.
Prompt: Annabel coming back as a ghost and haunting Poe's House
Annabel thinks this must be Hell.She thinks maybe she deserves it.





	

Annabel Lee wakes with a start, air filling previously silent lungs.

The early morning sun streams in through the window, a stark contrast to the darkness of the night before. She takes a sharp intake of breath as all her memories of the evening before came flooding back to her.

The party, and Eddie, and the realisation, and Eddie, and running, and the bridge, and Eddie, and the pleading, and the please, stop, it hurts, and she can’t breathe, and _Edgar_.

And Edgar.

And Edgar.

And Edgar.

And it was always you.

She needs to find Edgar.

 

She brings her hand to her throat, still marvelling at the ease with which she can breathe – especially considering her last memories are of … are of…

No.

She cuts off that particular train of thought. Because it would lead nowhere good, and she can’t afford to panic, especially right now.

 

Finally looking around the room she has found herself in, it calms her slightly when she recognises as Edgar’s smaller study – the upstairs one that he doesn’t let people in.

(She’s been in before – but he’s never considered her as ‘people’.)

(She’s known this for longer than she’s been willing to admit.)

She doesn’t know why she’s alone, but there must be an explanation. There must be a reasonable explanation. Of course, there must.

Something must have happened after Edgar found her – he must have brought her back to the house (she doesn’t remember that bit, but considering where she … fell asleep, and where she woke up, it must have happened) – something must have happened that was important, but not too important, and they left her alone for a bit, because they had to deal with the other … thing.

Yes, that was a very likely and plausible scenario.

Yes, it was.

 

And if there was something ‘wrong’ with the house, something that she can’t quite put her finger on – that it feels colder and darker and more alone than it did before – then that’s just her overactive imagination, and residual fear from … before.

That’s all. Everything is fine.

(Maybe if she repeats it enough, she’ll believe herself.)

 

Only she can’t find _anybody_.

Not even the bodies that had been abandoned at various points throughout the house when it got too difficult transporting down to the basement.

Not even Lenore, who rarely leaves the house, even when she wants to.

Not even Edgar.

She needs to find Edgar.

 

The house is bigger than she remembers, and it’s an accident she ever finds her way to the front door, but it’s a happy accident at least.

And there’s a pile of newspapers – obviously abandoned over the past days and weeks – just close to the door.

She intends to just skim her fingers over the top of pile, but stops short when the headline is proclaiming a name she knows very well.

“Brontë Sisters –”

The rest of the headline disappears into a crumpled mess – and she goes to straighten it out, when she realises the headline is no longer the most interesting part of the newspaper.

It’s the _date_.

The paper itself is at least a few days old, but it’s dated _wrong_. It’s dated for almost three weeks in the _future_.

There is _no way_ she’s been asleep for _three weeks_.

That’s just impossible.

Right?

 

Annabel tries to pick up the paper to read it, it must be a joke, something about the Brontë _sisters_ – Charlotte has a sister? What does she have to do with anything?

She doesn’t even notice the first time.

The first time she tries to pick up the newspaper and her fingers slip through it.

She notices the second time, when trying to pick up the newspaper becomes as futile as trying to pick up a cloud.

It doesn’t stop her from trying – moving her hand in and out of the pile of newspaper, as if repeating the same thing will yield a different result this time.

 

And no, this is not happening, no, not this, no, she survived, she woke up, she survived, this is not happening, how is this happening.

 

She takes a stuttered step backwards, arm outstretched to try and brace herself against the wall.

But the wall doesn’t halt her fall backwards. The wall doesn’t do anything as she falls straight _through_ it, and finds herself sitting in a bush outside.

Everything in her mind that had been screaming at her a second before grinds to a deafening halt.

She’s spent enough time around Lenore that (logically) Annabel understands exactly what’s going on – but that fact doesn’t help the fact that her subconscious is essentially going ‘ _No. No. No. No. No_.’

 

She needs to find Edgar.

She _really_ needs to find Edgar.

* * *

 

She finds Edgar in his office.

She really should have looked there first.

 

He’s writing frantically and he doesn’t look like he’s slept or eaten (or bathed – judging by the smell) in a … in a while.

There’s paper piled around him, some scrumpled, some not, and she recognises his ‘writing madness’, but she doesn’t understand why she woke up alone.

Why she wandered the house alone.

Why she … why she fell _through_ the wall … alone.

 

But right now, it doesn’t matter.

Because he’s Edgar, and she’s Annabel, and this will be made better. Someway. Somehow.

Edgar is good at fixing things.

Especially things she breaks.

 

“Edgar?” She speaks softly, not wanting to startle him, not wanting to break him from his reverie too quickly.

But he doesn’t show any sign of responding at all, still scribbling on the paper in front of him.

“Edgar.” She tries again, louder this time, walking closer to him. There’s still no response.

Her heart climbs into her mouth but she forces it down, and tries to keep a lid on her bubbling panic.

“Edgar!” She almost shouts it, stood less than a metre away from his face.

He doesn’t even flinch.

He can’t hear her.

 

She tries to reach out, to touch his shoulder, his arm, to prove that she _alive_ , or _not-dead_ at the very least.

Her hand slips right through.

It feels … wrong.

 

He makes a displeased noise and scrumples up the sheet of paper he had been writing on.

Sitting up straight, he throws it across the room – vaguely aiming at the bin, but not really caring if it gets in or not.

(It doesn’t)

He’s sitting up straight, and he’s looking ahead, and he’s looking _through_ her, and he’s looking _through_ her, and he can’t see her.

 

He can’t hear her.

He can’t see her.

He can’t see her.

 

She has to leave.

She can’t stay there.

She can’t stay with him if he can’t see her, can’t hear her, can’t know she’s there.

She has to leave.

* * *

 

‘Leaving’ leads to her ending up in the library.

She doesn’t quite know why she’s drawn to this room – it’s not like she’s spent very long in here … before.

But when she sees Lenore, curled up in one of the bigger armchairs, fully engrossed in a thick book (something that Annabel would not have considered a ‘Lenore’ pastime).

 

At the first glance, to someone who didn’t know the Lady Ghost as well as Annabel does, she would look the same as she always does (well, duh – she’s a ghost – she’s going to), but there are cracks in her perfect veneer, and Annabel doesn’t want to think about what that might mean.

 

So she doesn’t (think, that is), and moves as fast as she calmly can.

“Lenore,” she says, and there’s a layer of forced (very, very forced) calm over the panic that is still bubbling up inside of her.

There’s no movement, no recognition from her oldest friend (it hurts almost more than Edgar – Lenore is a _ghost_ , surely ghosts can see other ghosts.)

 

(And she’s a ghost now.)

(Because she’s dead.)

(Because _she_ is _dead_.)

(Because Eddie killed her. Eddie killed her. Eddie killed her. Eddie killed her. Eddie killed her.)

 

A clock chiming somewhere inside the house draws Annabel from her spiralling thoughts, and it sounds more ominous than it did when she was alive (everything sounds more ominous that it did when she was alive.)

 

Lenore sighs and puts her book down, before standing up and walking out – straight through a wall (Lenore had once told Annabel that she only uses doors and the like when she’s around ‘the living people’, because it makes them more comfortable not to see her disappear through a wall.)

 

(She also walks straight through Annabel without seeing her at all.)

(It’s an uncomfortable experience to say the least.)

 

She sits slowly on the chair that Lenore had just vacated, but instead of sitting prettily like she would have done … before, or like Lenore was doing only a moment before – Annabel falls straight through the overstuffed arm chair, and lands on the floor with a _thud_.

It doesn’t hurt.

But she decides to stand (for the near future at least).

She thinks.

 

_Edgar_ can’t see her.

_Lenore_ can’t see her.

No one else ever comes to this house (unless she invites them for a murder mystery dinner party and they all get murdered. She doesn’t think there’ll be another dinner party in the near future) so she can’t tell if anyone else can see her.

 

She doesn’t even know if this is ‘normal’ (or whatever classes as normal for ‘ghost-kind’).

She and Lenore never really talked about her early years as a ghost, it was too uncomfortable a subject (for both of them).

Krishanti was dead before Annabel, she definitely remembers that – so she can’t have been brought back by the only psychic she knows of, and Edgar and Lenore aren’t expecting her (or know she’s there), so no one _else_ brought her back.

It’s very confusing.

 

Maybe she brought herself back?

Is that a thing?

She thinks maybe she’s a ‘half-ghost’.

Forever stuck to see and hear what happens around her, but not to interact (with anything – object or life) ever again.

 

She thinks maybe this isn’t real.

(She hopes it isn’t real)

She thinks maybe this is hell.

She thinks maybe this is her punishment for helping Eddie (however unwittingly).

She thinks maybe this is her punishment for leading to the deaths of _so_ many people (so many _friends_.)

 

She thinks she deserves it.

* * *

 

Annabel spends her days following Edgar.

There isn’t much else to do, if she’s being honest.

(And she’s always honest. Tries to be, anyway.)

 

She doesn’t need to eat, she’s discovered.

(She tried to eat once, but she couldn’t even pick the food up, so she decided to save her strength for other challenges.)

She doesn’t need to drink, either. Or sleep. Or _anything_ else.

She just, sort of … exists.

 

She looks far more solid than she was expecting to.

(Especially for an invisible person).

She knows Lenore looks pretty solid – but part of her always expected that she would be at least partially translucent.

 

Annabel spends a lot of time in Edgar’s study.

Edgar spends a lot of time in Edgar’s study.

(And not his usual one – the big one downstairs that they had spent time in during the Dinner-Party-That-Shan’t-Be-Spoken-Of – but the smaller one upstairs, that is darker and dustier and has a strange musty unused smell. It’s not nearly as nice as the one downstairs.)

 

He writes a lot. Sometimes frantically, sometimes not. But he always spends more time writing than not-writing.

She doesn’t look at what he’s writing.

He wouldn’t like that, doesn’t like showing his work until it is ‘perfect’.

And even if he would never know, she doesn’t want to do something he wouldn’t like.

 

Lenore flits in occasionally, but they don’t talk. Ever.

She usually just places food down in front of him – sandwiches and fruits and cakes (things that can be eaten while doing other things.)

She never brings him soup though.

It’s a shame - he used to like soup before – especially Lenore’s soup.

(Lenore had been prouder than she cared to admit when he told her he liked her soup).

But the soup probably has bad memories attached to it now.

(Not even probably. Definitely.)

 

She spoke to him once – to tell him he hadn’t bathed in almost three weeks, and he smells worse than a corpse under the floorboards.

It was a joke, but Annabel doesn’t think she’s seen anyone turn that shade of white that quickly.

(He does bathe though – which is good, because he was getting rather pungent)

 

And then she leaves; to read and to fashion and to do whatever else she does to occupy her time in this big empty house.

 

Annabel spends three days trying to sit down.

She’s a ghost – she doesn’t get tired or anything – but she likes to pretend, and anyway, it’s _comforting_ to just sit in a big plush chair.

 

Annabel spends three days falling through various items of furniture and landing on the floor.

Once, she falls through the chair, falls through the floor, and lands in the room below the study.

It was a terrifying experience, and made even more so by the fact that she could just stand up, with no pain or injury, and … float … upwards, until she was back in Edgar’s study.

He hadn’t noticed she was gone.

(Of course he hadn’t – he didn’t even know she was there.)

 

It's half eleven in the morning when she finally does it.

She sits down.

And she doesn’t fall.

She’s not just balancing on the chair either – her weight is off the floor, and she is actually sitting down.

 

She laughs – happier than she had been since she woke up – which is sad, because she used to be happy at everything, and now she’s happy because she can sit down, but she’ll take anything.

There’s not exactly a manual on how to be a ghost.

It’s far more trial and error than she would like.

(She doesn’t mind the ‘trial’ part, it’s the ‘error’ that annoys her).

 

She shifts in the seat, concentrating intently and trying to see if she can remain sitting.

But then the chair _creaks_ and Edgar looks _up_.

 

And Edgar looks up and Edgar looks up and Edgar _looks up_.

 

He doesn’t see her, but he heard something that _she caused_.

She can still affect the world.

She is not completely alone.

She is more determined than ever before.

 

And then she falls through the chair.

Again.

* * *

 

Her efforts start small.

A floorboard creak here, a chair squeak there, a bottle moving a fraction of a centimetre somewhere else when she concentrates _really hard_ on nothing else for almost five hours.

It’s difficult.

But it’s something, so she keeps going.

 

Edgar doesn’t even consciously notice her efforts, but the twitch, the tilt of his head, the shifting of his body towards or away from the sound, the confusion when his drink isn’t exactly where he left it – he does react.

It proves that she’s real, that she’s still here, that she isn’t planning on going anywhere anytime soon.

 

The minor successes only boulder her resolve, and she decides to remain firm, and spend her every waking hour (which is all of them, because she doesn’t sleep) trying get Edgar’s attention.

It’s hard work and it never seems to work when Lenore’s around, but when it’s just her and Edgar … that is when she is most able to communicate.

(If you’re loose with your definition of ‘communication’ that is.)

 

With every passing day, Annabel is gaining further control over herself and what she can (and cannot) do.

 

But as Annabel is gaining control, Edgar is losing it.

 

He doesn’t even leave the room anymore, except to relieve himself, he just naps in his chair – fitful sleeps never more than an hour long – and Lenore brings food to him, because otherwise he would never eat, and she is not going to be responsible for him accidentally starving himself to death.

 

Still, it doesn’t help the nagging feeling (that she can mostly ignore) that Edgar is never going to notice her again.

That she’s going to live (well, not really, but still) forever, and never have a conversation with another person.

That the real world will forever be just at her fingers, and she will never be able to grasp it again.

 

It’s almost enough to make her give her.

Almost.

But not quite.

She tries harder.

 

She practises and she works and she practises and she works and …

She’s never still.

(Except when she’s practising sitting. Her record is now five continuous hours on a chair without falling through.)

(She never would have thought that would be an achievement she was proud of.)

 

She spends all her time trying to get someone (anyone, everyone, Edgar) to notice her, and it’s almost unfair that it’s an accident in the end.

She trips, and throws out a hand to steady herself, (some instincts can’t be overcome, no matter how much one logically knows they are a ghost) and there is a glass bottle on the shelf in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

The glass bottle shatters to the floor.

 

Edgar definitely notices that – jumping to his feet as (from his perspective) the bottle must have just decided just jump off the shelf.

(The bottle had been a present from Annabel, once upon a time. He kept it in here to keep _her_ in here.)

His expression is undecipherable as he leaves the room voluntarily for the first time in over a week.

* * *

 

Edgar Allan Poe isn’t an idiot.

Despite what certain Lady Ghosts may believe.

 

He might be little obtuse, a little slow on the uptake, but he notices everything eventually.

The shattering of the bottle made him realise all the things he had been ignoring lately – the floorboards and the chairs and the bottles.

It makes sense, only it doesn’t, and he’s confused, but he’s determined, and that’s only making him more confused and he doesn’t know what to think.

 

He doesn’t remember walking to find Lenore, but all too soon he is in the library in front of her before he knows it.

“Without Krishanti…,” he begins, and Lenore knows exactly what he’s going to ask.

“There’s no way for them to come back without her,” she cuts him off before he has to ask the full question, and her voice is soft (softer than he’s ever heard it before, and he thinks she feels sorry for _him_ , when she’s dead and he’s alive) and she has been waiting for him to ask this question for weeks, for months now.

 

(Edgar Allan Poe isn’t an idiot. He knows what books she’s been reading. He knows she wouldn’t lie if there was a way to bring them back.)

(It doesn’t mean he has to like the answer though.)

 

He returns to his study.

The horrid cramped weird-smelling study.

He’s alone.

(He’s always been alone. But he feels more alone than ever before now.)

He sits and he thinks.

He’s just … existing.

He’s writing and he’s eating (barely) and he’s writing and he’s sleeping (barely) and he’s writing.

He’s existing.

He’s not living.

He wants to live.

He wants to change the past.

Change the Dinner Party.

He wants to change _something_.

He wants _Annabel_.

 

Annabel is stood less than a metre away from him, and she’s trying to comfort him, trying so hard.

But it’s hard to comfort someone who can’t see you or hear you or feel you or even know that you’re there.

Annabel doesn’t want him to be in pain remembering her.

But she also doesn’t want to think of what would happen if he forgot about her.

She wants to live again.

She wants to live (as a human or a ghost or as anything else that will let her be with people again.)

 

Edgar can’t really replicate the series of events that led to him thinking that destroying the bridge with an axe would make him feel better.

(It does make him feel better. Slightly.)

There’s no real thought behind his action, he just needs the offending item _gone_.

It’s been mocking him for weeks, ever since … ever since…

 

Ever since Annabel died.

 

It’s been weeks, technically months now, but it had never really sunk in before.

Annabel was _dead_ , and there was no Krishanti and no other psychic and no one could bring her back.

Annabel was _dead_ and it was all his fault.

 

He continues destroying the bridge.

* * *

 

She doesn’t let it bother her.

The fact that he’s completely convinced she’s gone.

The fact that he believes she will never return.

(She almost believes that she’s gone, that she’ll never return.)

(She cannot imagine what it must look like from his point of view.)

 

She works harder at her ‘haunting’.

(She thinks Lenore would laugh at her attempts at haunting.)

(But not in a horrid way, but a ‘you’re too nice to haunt people’ sort of way.)

She gets less subtle (if that is at all possible.)

 

Books swap places, the floorboards are practically an orchestra by this point, nothing is ever in the same place that Edgar put it in.

 

But since the destruction of the bridge (now supplying the house with enough firewood for a little at least), Edgar has been studiously ignoring everything that happens.

(She’s glad the bridge is gone. It’s rather horrible having to look out at where you … died … every single day, and if she could sleep, she would be having nightmares about that bridge, probably forever.)

 

It’s rather annoying actually.

She’s putting in a lot of energy to try and be noticed.

And he’s just ignoring her.

On purpose.

(Okay – so he doesn’t know she’s _Annabel_ , but still…)

 

She doesn’t damage anything.

(They’re Edgar’s belongings, she doesn’t want to break them, she doesn’t know what they mean to him, doesn’t want to cause more heart break by accidentally destroying something that had great sentimental – or monetary – value to him.)

(She’s damaged enough things already; she doesn’t need a list of trinkets of varying imports added to it.)

 

She just wants him to notice her again.

She just wants to be real.

* * *

 

It’s almost ironic that after all her work, after all her time trying to get Edgar to notice her, it’s _Lenore_ who notices her first.

They don’t even notice that they can see each other at first.

 

She’s left Edgar alone for a moment; he’s writing rather frantically once again (and he’s in the sort of mood that even if she had still been alive, he probably wouldn’t notice her), so she takes the opportunity to ‘wander the halls’.

She loves Edgar, she really does, but sometimes she needs a change of scenery from his cramped study.

 

‘Wandering the halls’ leads her to the kitchen – she’s going to try and eat again.

She misses food. And drink. And sleep.

(And meaningful human interaction.)

(It’s strange the things she took for granted while she was alive, that she would give anything for now that she’s dead.)

(It doesn’t leave a strange ache in her chest when she says ‘She’s dead’ anymore.)

(She isn’t sure how she feels about that.)

 

It’s anticlimactic in the end.

She’s walking (floating) _into_ the kitchen, while Lenore is walking (floating) _out_ of the kitchen, holding what looks like a plate of food for Edgar.

(He still isn’t any better at remembering: HUMANS MUST EAT.)

 

And Lenore walks _around_ her.

 

_Lenore_ walks _around_ her.

 

It takes Annabel a second to realise what that must mean, and she spins around just in time to hear the shattering sound of a plate hitting the floor.

 

Lenore can see her.

Lenore can _see_ her.

 

She could cry.

She does cry.

(Just a little. She’s been alone for _months_. She’s missed people.)

 

She’s not going to be ‘invisible’ and ‘intangible’ for the rest of her Not-Life.

Her punishment is over.

A weight she had forgotten was there lifts from her chest as, for the first time in a long time, she thinks she might be able to be forgiven.

 

Lenore has questions.

(A lot of questions).

(Annabel doesn’t have most of the answers.)

 

Who? (Annabel) What? (Ghost) Where? (Here, the whole time) When? (Months) I’m sorry. (Not your fault) Why? (I don’t know) How? (I don’t know) But Krishanti? (I know)

… Edgar? (…No)

 

But the question of ‘Edgar’ brings up another point.

One point that is so, so important.

 

Can Edgar see me now?

* * *

 

The answer is ‘No. No he can’t’.

(Yet. He can’t _yet_. She gave up hope once before, she won’t again.)

(Lenore can see her. Lenore can _see_ her. She’s real. She’s really real.)

(It’s only a matter of time.)

(Maybe if she repeats herself enough, she’ll finally believe it.)

(It’s only a matter of time.)

 

Two days’ pass – then three and four and five and six, and by the seventh, even Edgar has noticed Lenore’s sudden habit of staring at something out of the corner of her eye.

He doesn’t comment on it.

(Apparently that would be ‘rude’. That’s what Annabel would say if she was here.)

(She was here, and she wanted Edgar to ask, so Lenore could just _tell_ him.)

 

Somehow, even though Lenore can see her, even though she has spoken to another living (sort of), breathing (technically not), thinking (that one’s true) human being (…eh on the human part, yeah on the being part) – Annabel somehow feels lonelier than ever.

It hurts, having Edgar this close and this far at the same time.

 

She’s sat in ‘her’ corner, in ‘her’ chair, where she’s been sat nearly every day for longer than she wants to think about.

And she can’t do it anymore.

 

She can’t just _watch_ him for the rest of eternity.

Lenore can see her, maybe other ghosts can?

She could travel the world, see all manner of new and exciting sights.

Of course, she’s never travelled more than three hours away from her home before, but that’s what makes it _exciting_.

Maybe.

Or maybe not.

 

Either way, she can’t just _stay_ in this room.

So she leaves.

 

She doesn’t go far – just into the hallway in fact – that’s far enough for her.

 

But something – the light, a flash of red hair, a glimpse of dress, _something_ – makes Edgar get up and follow her.

He doesn’t even know he’s following her, just that he has to leave the room – now – he has to, has to, has to.

 

He freezes when he enters the hallway.

He pinches himself once, twice, three times just to be _sure_ he’s not dreaming.

(He’s had this dream before; it hurts to wake up more each time.)

His eyes are playing a trick on him, only they’re not and someone is in the hallway, and it’s not Lenore and he recognises that hair, and he recognises that dress, and he recognises that girl, sat on the floor with her back to him, he’d recognise that girl even when he could no longer recognise himself.

 

He half collapses to the ground himself, and the word that escapes from his lips is less ‘spoken’ and more ‘breathed’.

“Annabel.”

 

And the figure stills. She stops breathing entirely, like if she moves the spell will be broken, and everything will be as it was minutes before when she was … when she was dead, and she was never coming back and he was never going to see her.

 

Her head turns first, most of her body remaining entirely rigid.

Her eyes are wide with worry – she doesn’t _want_ to believe, not until she knows that believing won’t hurt her.

(Believing has hurt her before. Believing got her killed before.)

 

Suddenly a lot of things from the past few months make _even more_ sense than they did before, and Lenore has been behaving strange recently and maybe this is why.

And Edgar doesn’t really know what ‘happy’ feels like, has forgotten it somewhere along the way, but he thinks maybe this is happy, Annabel Lee in front of him, and she’s _alive_ (sort of) and she’s crying (just a little bit) and she is the most beautiful thing that he’s ever seen in his life.

(The only beautiful thing in his life.)

(Lenore takes a small amount of offense to that.)

And he doesn’t even care if he’s finally gone insane, because if insanity means an eternity with Annabel Lee, he’ll take that trade in a heartbeat, he doesn’t care if this is a curse or a blessing because _Annabel Lee_ is in front of him.

And she’s in front of him.

And she’s in front of him.

_Annabel_.

 

He reaches for her, with just one hand, and he can see – in her eyes – the moment the worry turns to realisation, when she knows he can see her, when she knows she can be seen, when he didn’t just say her name, when he _meant_ it.

And she’s real again.

She has Lenore and she has Edgar, and his hand touches her arm, and it doesn’t go through, and she’s real.

(She’s still dead, she’s still a ghost, but they can work with that.)

(They’re real, that’s all that matters.)

 

And maybe her punishment is over, maybe she has been forgiven (however partially) for the role she played in Eddie’s scheme, and that name doesn’t make her want to tear her own throat out for this first time since her death, because _Edgar_ is here, and he can see her, and she’s solid (at least for now).

And she’s happy – pure ecstatic joy, and she’s crying (mostly with happiness), and she _knows_ she’s lucky, she knows that this is her Happily Ever After, she knows that this isn’t the end, but the start of the middle.

 

She knows it’ll be a good middle.

 

And she speaks, and he hears, for the first time since that dreadful, horrible, dark and lonely night on the bridge.

She speaks, and he listens, and it’s a statement and a promise and a truth.

“It was always you.”


End file.
